


the best things happen while you're dancing

by weatheredlaw



Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies)
Genre: Dancing, F/M, Implied Sexual Content, Love Confessions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-25
Updated: 2016-12-25
Packaged: 2018-09-11 23:41:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,721
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9043508
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/weatheredlaw/pseuds/weatheredlaw
Summary: “I will also confess that I find you to be a very wonderful dance partner.” He smiles. “And I don’t intend on finding another.”





	

**Author's Note:**

> tumblr user fennethianell drew some lovely art of newt and tina dancing and i turned that idea into this monstrosity so anyway take it away from me please.

_the best things happen while you’re dancing_  
_things that you would not do at home come naturally on the floor_

 

* * *

 

Jacob and Queenie get married on New Year’s Eve, the day after the Congress relents, after weeks of deliberation and testimony, weeks of arguing back and forth and debating whether to Obliviate the _both_ of them – after so much talking and so much _considering_ , MACUSA finally gives in, and the first No-Maj marries into a wizarding family in America. It is the _most_ perfect way to begin a new year, and Mrs. Esposito lets them have a party in the snow-covered back yard of the apartment building. Newt splurges and rents a tent, and everyone they know packs into the yard to dance and eat and drink.

There’s a floor for the dancing, and a beautiful band (another of Newt’s gifts, Tina’s going to have to ask him to _stop_ ) plays any song they can think of. Queenie is _resplendent_ in white and gold, Jacob a handsome match. From her seat at the front table, Tina can see the party as it begins to die down, well into the night, but the dancing hasn’t stopped. From her left, Newt says quietly, “It’s a wonderful thing, don’t you think?”

Tina turns, and he’s smiling, something large and open, cheeks pink with wine and the occasional spin with Queenie and a girl from the office. Tina has declined to dance a dozen times, but she’s beginning to see the appeal. Newt’s eyes _shine._

“It is,” she says, and lets him take her hand. “You didn’t have to do all this.”

“I did, actually.” Newt threads their fingers together. “Well. I _wanted_ to, is the difference I suppose. Your sister and Jacob deserve something wonderful. They’ve answered to enough this past month. They shouldn’t have to want for anything for a while.” He leans closer. “And now, of course, I’m free from purchasing an awkward wedding gift.”

“ _Newt._ ”

“Well my mother always gave everyone macaroons. I’m sure she still does, my cousin Ophelia was married last month. Theseus said it was _lovely._ ” He looks up at the fairy lights twinkling overhead.

“Do you miss home?”

“I go back,” he says. “Not as often as mother would like, but as much as I can. She thinks now the book is done I should…” He waves out toward the dance floor.

“Dance?”

“Marry. I should _marry_ , Tina.”

“…I see.”

“I told her, baby steps. One small thing at a time. For example—” He stands, her hand still in his, and says quietly, “Would you care to dance, Miss Goldstein?”

She sighs. “Newt, I told you. I don’t _dance._ ”

“Come now. Everyone dances. It’s simply…rather fast walking.”

“Not the way you do it.”

He straightens a bit. “I have professional waltz training. It was a birthday gift from my great-aunt Violet.”

“Forgive me, for disparaging your art.”

“No offense taken. But I would like for you to join me.” He tips his head, listening before he nods. “Ah, you see? They’re playing a song you love.”

The band is, indeed, playing a tune Tina enjoys.

And Newt is, in the light, so very inviting. Handsome, pink-cheeked and light-footed. His freckles stand out and he’s put effort into keeping the hair from his face. For her, he always says. Her Newt. A dancer, it would seem, in addition to philosopher and caretaker of all manner of beasts.

“Alright,” she says, and gives in.

(She was always going to, and the pull was not so great as to invite argument or quarrel. Newt will never force her to do a single thing she doesn’t want to do, and Tina has never _done_ a single thing she didn’t want ever, in her entire life.

So. She dances.)

“Now,” he says. “You just put your hands here, and I’ll lead.”

“Is it so simple?” she mutters, but can’t stop the smile spreading on her face.

“Oh, very,” Newt insists.

And, it turns out – it rather is.

He is a marvelous leader, a wonderful dancer and partner. Their cheeks press together, a perfect imitation of an age-old cliché that Tina is only too happy to fall into the clutches of.

A thought hits her, a sudden windfall of a thing that snatches at her heart and takes her breath away.

How _in love_ she is, and how perfect of a night it is to be such a way.

“Newt,” she murmurs.

“Yes, dear?”

Tina pulls back, just enough to see him. Odd shadows from the twinkling lights overhead cross his face, and Tina feels her lips part, her neck crane ever so slightly, before he meets her there –

And she has kissed him before, hesitantly some nights, firmly others – but this is the first time there has been some modicum of intent beyond _please don’t leave me again for so long, please let my face be the one you think of before you close your eyes, please please please –_

This is so _different_ , so astoundingly unique because Tina, for the first time in so very long, is kissing a man she is hopelessly in love with and finding, as every second passes, that he is certainly feeling the same way about her.

And now their dancing has devolved into an odd swaying as Newt reaches to hold her face in his hands and Tina grips his jacket and finds herself making a spectacle of herself with no one really watching.

(She wouldn’t know, the way Queenie knows, that an awkward and quiet Graves, who has been watching the whole celebration in peace the entire time, thinks that it’s nice for two people to kiss at a wedding.

She wouldn’t know, the way Queenie knows, that Mrs. Esposito looks at Tina and Newt and remembers her own husband, and thinks that he’d be happy to know there is love here in this house still.

She wouldn’t know, the way Queenie knows, exactly what is going through Newt’s head, which is a series of rapid fire thoughts that all lead him down the same road, give him the same hope, that two people will dance and kiss at his own wedding someday, and he and Tina will be able to watch and think and remember –

She’s only thinking – _I want to dance with you for as long as I can, for the whole rest of my life, and I will do anything to make sure I am able to._ )

Newt draws back, his mouth never quite leaving her face as he presses kiss after kiss to her cheeks, her jaw, the shell of her ear –

“ _Newt._ ”

“I’m sorry,” he manages. “I just can’t…I don’t _want_ to—”

“Don’t stop,” is all Tina can say, before his lips cover her own again and they are lost to the rest of the world, kiss after kiss after kiss.

 

* * *

 

Jacob and Queenie get a hotel room, and so the two of them are alone. Tina is just fine with that.

She starts with his jacket, then his tie and the buttons of his slacks. He starts with her hair, the intricate curls she’d pinned up earlier that day tumbling out, landing at her shoulders with a soft sigh as he slides his hands along her thighs and pushes her dress to her hips.

Tina tips her head back, and his mouth is on her neck in an instant, kissing, whispering, promising.

He promises so much, there in the spaces between them. He promises to love her for as long as he is alive, for as long as the world will allow him. He promises to take care of her, to take her wherever the winds may carry them.

They move as a ship in its port does, a steady tempo, soft breaths in and out, his name on her tongue, a shout given up in prayer or pleading, Tina can’t be sure.

She knows that they were dancing, and then they were here, and that he loves her (he’s said it a hundred times, and then a hundred more) and that she loves him –

“My love, my love, my love,” he murmurs, burying his face in the crook of her neck as something curls around them, tighter and tighter, before they are both released and the world begins to settle and the ship is moored.

Gasping into her mouth, he says, “I won’t leave you again.”

Tina closes her eyes, gripping him close. “I won’t leave _you_ ,” she murmurs. “I won’t.”

 

* * *

 

She wakes and he is asleep, face-first in a pillow, gently snoring. Tina dresses carefully, padding out of the room to make breakfast. He finds her as she’s putting French toast on the table, taking her by the hands and pulling her in to kiss her expansively against the kitchen counter.

The spatula tumbles out of her fingers.

Breakfast goes a bit cold, but it’s not really as important as the thing he is capable of doing to her with his own two hands.

“I think we should dance,” he says.

Tina, properly ravaged and still trying to stand on two legs, _giggles._ “You’re amazing,” she mutters.

“I’m also not joking.” He kisses her forehead and crosses the room to the little phonograph, setting down the needle. “Come here.” Newt reaches out, and Tina goes. “I don’t want to forget,” he says, a little sheepishly.

“Could you, though?”

“Doubtful. I will also confess that I find you to be a very wonderful dance partner.” He smiles. “And I don’t intend on finding another.”

“Good,” Tina says, a bit more possessively than she might have intended, but Newt doesn’t seem to mind.

“I do intend to remain wholly and completely yours, even in my absence. Though I would rather there not be one.”

“There will be,” Tina says. “There always will be.”

“I suppose that cannot be helped.”

“No. I don’t think it can.”

Newt sighs. “Well, either way.” He gives her a spin. “I want you to know exactly how I feel.”

She laughs again. “I think you’ve made that quite clear.”

“Have I? Should I again?”

Tina raises a brow. “ _Can_ you?”

“Oh, yes, Miss Goldstein.” He pulls her to the couch. “I most certainly can.”

 

* * *

 

_for dancing soon becomes romancing  
_ _when you hold a girl in your arms that you've never held before_


End file.
